Here is the final animation. I am happy with the outcome of this couple of weeks’ work although I still do not think it looks quite true to the way it appeared while editing. This project has opened my eyes to the possibilities offered by animation and I am definitely going to use it again in future.
I hope it’s as much fun to watch as it was to make.
Yesterday evening I rendered what I thought was going to be the final version of the animation but on reviewing it, I noticed a few errors which I had missed. I am currently re-rendering the animation itself and then will need to reapply the titles.
I cannot help feeling that the final product did not look as crisp or clean as I thought it had in After Effects, but I think it is really a case of seeing what happens this time.
I have made a lot of use of layering for a sense of depth and realistic movement. Here you can see that I have some space-rocks in the foreground and also in front of the background. The foreground rocks move at a higher speed than the background rocks as the image closest to you will always appear to move faster in the real world.
I am really coming toward a final cut of the animation now, I am just making slight changes such as flickering stars and so on, little details like this, for me, can really make or break an animation. Watching work by Ghibli or Adam Phillips or any of my other favourite animators/studios, there is always very acute attention to detail
Another insight into the creation process. These are some of the motifs and objects I mentioned previously. I hand-drew and inked these which has a really effective contrast with the computer-rendered figures.
I have not really included much development work of the animation, which is now in the final stages of production. This is my workspace and I will explain in brief how I used it.
My animation makes use of many features in After Effects which I would not have previously thought to use or which the programs I am familiar with do not possess. As you can see, I have two screens showing. One is from the an angle and the other from the front. The right-hand screen is my animation as it will look when rendered. The left is for editing camera and lighting effects which are part of the three-dimensional capabilities avaliable in AE. This has given the piece a much more atmospheric, ambient feel and I couldn’t be happier with the way these aspects look when put into play.
The split screen allows me to see how far the objects on screen are from one another and to scale, move or adapt them as appropriate, casting light and shadows with the use of virtual light sources.
This is a still of some of the scenery, just to give you an idea of what the final product is going to look like. I am really pleased with the aesthetic qualities of the work I’ve produced so far and am looking forward to sharing the finished thing with you all.
How’m I doin’?
I’m doing good. Today I began actually animating since I have now finished most of the backgrounds and the props and so on. I struggled a bit with the very first shot (feet walking in flip-flops) because it was difficult to get all components of the figure’s feet to move in sync, however I have managed to pull it together and it only needs a little more tweaking. I also composed in full the second shot in which the space-boy walks along the platform. I found this one much easier and annoyingly it looks a lot more effective than the first shot in my opinion.
I have found the pin tool extremely useful and I will be using it extensively in getting my characters to move in a believable way. I will post some images of the production process this week, so keep an eye out.
A quick test I threw together in ten minutes to get used to working in layers and so on. I used MS paint for this which is why the quality isn’t so good. I think drawing into after effects will make my life a lot easier as onion-skinning in MS paint isn’t possible. I made use of the inverse eraser to colour the legs a different colour, then redrew them over the top and used the fill tool and the paintbrush to cover the previous frame’s positioning.
I have just finished the backdrops. It took me quite a long time to produce all of them but I’m pretty happy with how they came out. I tried to include a bit of a sequential sense of ‘production’ in the images. The steps I took to create these were firstly to block in the black. I did this with black acrylic and tissue, this was great for creating fades and soft texture. I then allowed them to dry and added the colour with inks. I used red, purple, blue and green ink in this case. After allowing the ink to dry I applied the stars in white acrylic with a thin brush.
My next job is to put together the other static elements such as some ships, the ‘pier’ the protagonist is walking on and any other motifs I feel are appropriate to include.
More experimentation. Trying to work the other elements in.
